


we few, we happy few

by spiraetspera



Category: Naruto
Genre: Multi, also a lot of PINING after one another, ot3 angsting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 19:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14385756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiraetspera/pseuds/spiraetspera
Summary: They would stand with a smile etched onto their faces, gold and black and white, all glory and hope - elbow to elbow, skin to skin, as if trying to seep into each other blood - before Tsunade would bet her boys to race till Mito's house, teeth glinting as she won.





	we few, we happy few

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ioncehadabrain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ioncehadabrain/gifts).



> This is your fault, Chau. This is also a mess but ARGH. Feelings.

 

 

Her blood was a vivid and laughable terror as it spread across her chest from the wound Orochimaru had inflected a moment before. It must have been a surprise for her assailant as well, for his eyes widened in true shock.

  
How long had it been since he was taken aback like this? And what was stranger still, Orochimaru looked sincerely sorry at that moment - that, too, was laughable in the daylight.

  
She coughed, and the blood spattered and dotted his cheeks with her fleeting life. This finally made him withdraw. And when she looked up, shaking with the sheerness of her trauma, he was already astanding, mouth bitter and eyes hard.

  
"Tsunade" Pleased to hear that his voice was tired, she found no energy to gloat anymore. It was easy to forget that this thing wearing a human face was as old as she would have been, were they brave enough to look like their part. Perhaps that made her a thing as well, instead of a human.

  
In another time, when Orochimaru chided him about war and would have killed Jiraiya in a heartbeat, living and dying were up for Tsunade. But then again, Orochimaru always hesitated when it came to her, could never quite make up his mind as swiftly as he would have liked. That made him vulnerable, which got him livid in a heartbeat. So Tsunade willed herself to not be fooled by the guilt in his eyes.

  
But as he spoke again, he sounded all too mortal. For a moment, the sadness in her heart was tangible, and for him alone.

  
"You are the only one whom I wanted to spare."

  
She spat the remnants of the blood and saliva from her mouth and knew that soon enough, the moment she says no in his face, Orochimaru would shake that humane sort of weakness of himself as a snake sheds its skin.

 

 

  
-

  
There were surprises everyday: she was teamed up with two orphans, one a pervert and the other a weirdo. It was okay. She was dubbed the spoiled Tsunade. Not in her face. Not directly. She hated that. But sometimes, Orochimaru called her a princess, though he had no spite in his voice. He thought it a part of protocol. Jiraiya, on the other hand, mocked her a lot, and Tsunade welcomed it. Anything was better than the closed-up walls and high-alert security with its tactful smiles and silences, doubled and tripled after uncle Tobirama's death. And though their sensei held the same grief in his eyes, shoulders bent by the responsibilities, his face was stormy. They weren't a team yet, the orphans and Tsunade. They were poles apart. Worlds apart.

  
Then one day, weeks after the bell test, Jiraiya stepped into a bear trap, made of steel, double springs - his blood was everywhere. Orochimaru stayed calm and ran to get help while Tsunade and Jiraiya made up stories on what to tell the others when they get back. Whether scars are worth the myth. Jiraiya said they do, though his face was pasty and drained from blood completely. _Look, mah scars will impress the others_ , he had said, voice slurring from the shock. _'Specially the kunoichis. Do you think I can get one on mah chest, 'suna?_

  
Jiraiya laughed between his heavy, painfully short intakes of breath. He had a talent for that, for masking his pain with laughter. Even with Tsunade applying direct pressure on his thighs, blood engulfed them, a mockery of red sofa in the damp earth. By the time Orochimaru returned, and Jiraiya was most likely high from blood loss, he still was smiling. _Stop smiling, you total idiot_ , said Orochimaru, but his own mouth was curling upwards. Tsunade was smiling too. They were proud of that fool. From that exact point, it became their role to be so.

  
Later, Orochimaru would draw her the ouroboros symbol, the snake without an end, and say: this is us. How so; asked Tsunade, curious and kind and attentive. He had carved the circle on a tree near her house, and even when she left after the many deaths and her own failures, Tsuna caressed the tree, cherished it, for it was a tangible truth on how Orochimaru could draw the greatest, the most unalloyed gentleness out of her. Was it pity, she often wondered in her old age, shaking her head a moment later. Why be stuck in the past when the present continuously and cruelly required her holy attention. Still. A superstitious part of her, the one that also liked to blow on her dices thrice before throwing, thought that there was no concrete difference between past and present and future. What has occurred once shall inevitably come to happen in the unforeseeable future. Time as a loop. A circle. _You, me, infinity_ ; Orochimaru had said, his eyes yellow, his eyes young.

  
And later still, Tsunade would stand with them, the Konoha trees behind and before and all around them, listening to Hiruzen and all the tales Tsuna has heard already, firsthand from their original sources. They would stand with a smile etched onto their faces, gold and black and white, all glory and hope - elbow to elbow, skin to skin, as if trying to seep into each other blood - before Tsunade would bet her boys to race till Mito's house where a fresh plate of _amanatto_ welcomed them always.

  
And her grandmother's nagging, so serene and soothing, to come inside and sit, _and for the gods' sake, Tsuna, give them a second plate, they are so thin_. Against her better judgment, Tsuna never laughed, not even when she was twelve and at her worst, because though Jiraiya was anything but modest and Orochimaru must have been the cleverest among them; both of them were orphaned, loss and mistrust carved nigh-permanently onto their eyes, eyes that were far too large for their long, scrawny faces.

  
Yes, Tsuna reasoned later, it must have been these early experiences with grief that have transformed Jiraiya onto a broad, loud and all too comical thing to be called honest; and it had been the same sorrow that molded Orochimaru into a cynic and a creep, with sharp and silent edges. Her boys, these lost things, standing in the hallways made by Hashirama Senju from the finest of oak and elm and juniper wood, looked anything but certain then. Jumping when Mito nudged them gently into her kitchen. And the wonders: Ororchimaru bowing with such reverence, such care while Jiraiya stood blushing, pitpatting with his long legs, figure awkward.

 

Surprises everyday.

 

 

  
-

  
"Yes. It's dead. Try not to touch it."

It was no use. Orochimaru had already picked up the carcass, an owl of some sort, angles wrong and feathers dark with blood. Its smell made Jiraiya's stomach summersault and he whined when Orochimaru opened his bag to find a towel to wrap the remnants of the bird into it.

  
"Why would you do this?" he asked, pointing upwards. "Look, you are making its family all nervous."

  
And indeed, another owl and a hatchling were peering down, chirping in distraught. Orochimaru didn't even bother to shrug.

"That's so like you, Chimaru" Jiraiya spread his hands, wide apart, grinning. "Everything else is bursting with life and all you care about is the one dead thing in the forest."

  
"It is not" said Orochimaru then. His lips were thin as he stared at the carcass in his hands. The look in his eyes bordered on crazed.

  
"What do you mean, creepface?"

  
With Tsunade gone to Suna for her medical apprenticeship, there was no one to act as a buffer between them. Normally, this would have been the point where Orochimaru insulted him, and he would have laughed and vamoosed away on his merry way while Tsuna hit a tree till it shattered, thus semi-convincing Orochimaru to leave that fucking carcass on the ground.

  
"I mean" enunciated Orochimaru, as if talking to an infant. "You and I are dying also. It is an unstoppable process, this rotting."

  
His mouth curled upward, but Jiraiya wouldn't have called it a smile. It looked something terrible.

  
"We are closer to this carcass than you'd think, Jiraiya."

  
"You make no sense" he spat back. "Why see the worst when you have the best around you?"

  
"Your idiocy _tires_ me" Orochimaru's voice was even as he walked away.

 

 

  
-

  
Peacetime meant normalcy hinging on boredom, but it was sweet when they had their first shot of sake; warm like a lullaby. Even Orochimaru drank, and he even gave into Jiraiya's teasings and actually tried to balance himself on a snake, bringing down, in the end, the whole table. His anger was outmatched only by his drunken stupor, and when Jiraiya started laughing - laughing so hysterically that great drops of tears poured down his face, the birthmark on the corner of his nose - so did Tsuna and so did Chimaru. They were heroes then, heroes and invincible, unending like the great ouroboros snake Orochimaru drew for her when they were even younger. Unending like a myth. Like a tale. Hanzo marked them, here. They were out of the line ever since. Out of touch. Like those stars in the sky.

  
But oh, how lovely, Tsuna thought, as the stars indeed smiled down at them. Those many dots carried many wishes, stretched wide open as a canopy on the Kiri sky. They made their drunken way back home, the tents. Jiraiya fell asleep as soon as his head hit the ground, Orochimaru and her had to carry him, and although he always was the heaviest, his body did seem less of a burden when she carried it with Orochimaru.

  
They made no small talks - Tsuna was too proud, and Orochimaru was too occupied with whatever he pondered on nowadays. Even then, it was extremely hard to tell what was going on in his mind.

  
When they finally arrived, they thrown rather than planted Jiraiya's body in his tent and he didn't even budge. Tsunade felt frustrated, hands at her mouth to wipe the carefully applied lipstick from her mouth, whimsical daydreams crushed. The air around them was fresh and cold, full of possibilities, and the discrepancy between the scenery and her own state of mind created ire and irritation.

  
What a pity, she thought then, gazing down at that solid body in the dark, at the gaping mouth at the snoring. Some sight to see. This was her chance. _His_.

 

Then she felt, felt rather than heard, her other teammate moving away, levitating toward his own tent along with the fleeting hope of the possibility, the moment. And Tsunade, fifteen and impatient, heard herself breathe out;

  
" _Wait_."

  
Orochimaru didn't say a word, but stopped in his midtracks nevertheless. Tsuna couldn't even hear him breathe, not even as she closed the onyx distance between them.

  
"Tsuna" his voice was amused, tainted with mockery. He sounded disinterested, eyes calculating and there was a small wrinle between his elegant brows.

"What's the meaning of this?"

  
_Good_ , she thought smugly. _Let him be confused. Even if a little._

  
But when she opened her mouth, her voice came out very small, mumbling. So unlike herself.

  
"Well" she hugged herself. The sudden cold, the uncertainty was not a show. "You see.... I wanted to tell Jiraiya a secret. But he is asleep now."

  
"A secret?" he repeated and his mouth twitched. Tsuna knew this was his way of smiling. She also knew she had him wrapped around her fingers - Orochimaru was greedy in his curiosity. Perhaps his only flaw.

  
She nodded and Orochimaru continued staring. It wasn't as cold anymore.

  
"Promise you won't tell anyone." she said, lower and huskier than before. He furrowed his brows without any further disguise. Clearly, he couldn't even guess what was coming.  
She heard him tucking, running his hands through his hair, the soft rustling voice of silk cutting through the darkness, and his face so pale and wondering. A sign of his nervousness, or was he considering his options? The possibilities?

  
As his thoughts branched out and as silence grew longer, Tsunade felt her patience running thin.

  
"Come on." she put her hands on her hips. "You'll like it."

  
"I truly doubt that" his voice was also low.

  
"What?" there were no trees around, so she almost thought of punching him instead.

  
"If you considered telling Jiraiya first, I doubt it'd be of any novelty to me."

  
Here it was again, the arrogance. Tsuna rolled her eyes.

  
"Do you want to know or not?"

  
Silence.

  
"Suit yourself." It came out more of a hiss and she turned to leave these idiots and cry a bit onto the cool fabric of her tent.

  
Then.

  
" _Wait_ " it was his turn now, to plead, although it sounded more like a command. Intrigued, Tsunade turned to find him staring with yellow eyes, pupils narrowed onto line-thin slits. His face was pale and crumpled in its concentration. "I want to know."

  
"Okay" she felt herself growing nervous again, though she straightened her shoulders and her spine and slapped her palms together. "Come closer. I will whisper it."

  
He obeyed, movements languid and calculated. All suspicious.

  
"Whisper it then." he said, slowly.

  
Instead of answering, she tiptoed to reach his face. His first instict, she knew, was to recoil, but she kept him close with her hands on his shoulders. He was laughably thin, she thought as their breath mixed.

When she hadn't uttered a word, Orochimaru bent her neck lower, closer to her, so that she may whisper the secret.

  
Instead of the secret, Tsunade kissed him. Right and tight on his chapped lips, forceful and clumsy and wet.

  
He let her. A secret. 

 

 

  
-

  
"What about Karasu?" asked the boy, way too young to be reading his novels. "Is he still alive?"

  
He had written about Karasu in almost each of his books, though he had such a small part he could not even be considered a minor character.

  
Karasu, the man who ran from death. Did not seek out women. Lived as a hermit and sold aphrodisiacs to the most desperate. Karasu, the genius - Karasu, the mystic - Karasu, the traitor. A man who never smiled.

  
"Yes" Jiraiya heard himself saying. His mouth and breath were warm from the wine, but his heart turned cold. He found himself unable to look at the boy. "Karasu is still alive."

  
"He is my favourite."

  
"Oh" that caught his attention. He turned to the boy who sat up straight under his gaze. "Why?

  
The teenager fidgeted a bit, shy.

  
"Well. He is clever. I feel like he will come around and... I don't know." he stuttered around a bit when Jiraiya kept on staring, unblinking. "Realize being alone is not too fun. He could help a lot."

  
They laughed about it. Jiraiya wanted to pay for his dinner, but the boy declined, happy and full with the conversation. After he left, Jiraiya drank until he was wasted just enough to compose the story of Karasu, the man who stepped into the sunlight.

 

 

  
-

  
In a month's time, he saw Orochimaru with the owl again. The bird was alive, wilder than before, ready to cram anything. It trashed the laboratory Hiruzen gifted for Orochimaru's birthday but could not fly for more than a minute.

  
"Is this what you wanted?" he asked on his third visit with a note in his hand.

  
Orochimaru didn't face him, only the thin curve of his neck and graceful lilt of his shoulders greeted him. He was mashing pieces of meat together. For the bird, no doubt. His answer, as always, was cryptic.

  
"It will do."

  
"The neighbours are complaining about the godawful noises. Here." he put the note on the nearest surface, just close enough for Orochimaru to reach. He still didn't turn around. "Your first official complaint. Congrats."

  
No reaction whatsoever. When he had enough of the silence between them, Jiraiya spoke out soft enough for only the other to hear.

  
"Don't be cruel, Chimaru."

  
He turned then a bit, showing off the sharp edges of his profile. His smile was soft like a sin. It didn't reach his eyes.

  
"Whatever you are talking about now?" his voice was amused, a tad bit mocking.

  
"The bird" said Jiraiya. "Why not return it where it belongs?"

  
Orochimaru turned back his attention to the raw meat.

  
"Whom does it belong to?"

  
"This is not a joke" Jiraiya said sharply, standing up. "Its family, of course. The wildness. Nature. Whatever you call it."

  
"You are wrong, Jiraiya." still he hadn't turned around. For years, till his death, Jiraiya would remember the smell of raw meat and how the knife in Chimaru's hands glimmered from the lazy light winking through the rolling shutters. How cold he felt when Orochimaru spoke again. Just how much of strangers they had become to one another.

  
"By giving its life back, this creature now belongs to me." the man continued.

  
Jiraiya forced out a laughter.

  
"It's a prisoner here. It will die again."

  
Very slowly, Orochimaru turned his head to meet his eyes. He hadn't said a word and Jiraiya realized it then, he saw through Orochimaru's intentions like the light seeped through the shutter. Knew in his heart of hearts that he had to leave immediately, lest he did something unthinkable.

  
And for once, he did what any responsible man would have done in his place. What he should have done a long ago.

  
He wrote to Tsunade.

 

 

  
-

  
Somewhere between the deep green solace of the forest and the Uzumaki shrine, Orochimaru learned about Jiraiya's death.

  
"Pain" Sasuke had said as an explanation, looking ahead, staring into the abyss of the city, eyes dark and distant and derisive. No emotion in his voice whatsoever, the light of the night across his face. A sliver of the moon. Orochimaru has found it oddly fitting, oddly poetic; alike to hybris and a haven. He, after all, had part in what Sasuke had become. Had part in what Jiraiya had chosen to do, in the end.

  
Yet he felt oddly furious when the realization hit home, a wide space somewhere between his ribs. Shoulders shaking and legs stomping, he excused himself from the others, to rally in his own rebirth that now felt cavernously hollow, a joke, something only Jiraiya could mock by merely being _dead_ \- for Jiraiya was free now and void of any responsibilities. His victory felt spoiled, a fresh tissue of cells rotten by a sick, deadened follicle.

  
Would he have smiled upon seeing him again? Smile without fury or anger and with something like mirth? Orochimaru was somehow certain he would have. At first. As an instinct. That old fool. That complete  _idiot_. Going alone when he was always deadlast, without any plan, no doubt. Never knew where the line was, where his own boundary lay - and wasn't he so alike to Orochimaru then, forever pushing forward, wanting more and more? Encompassing and gorging and choke on his own myth and believing these talk of wise gods, immortal, unending.

  
"Foolish" he said then, aloud, to a tree, to the dead leaves on the ground. They, much like Jiraiya, didn't care for masking their rotting - and Jiraiya had his wrinkles since his twenties, from smiling too wildly and taking many nights too idly and living, looking upwards, looking upwards, looking upwards. Face forever in an ever-movement.

  
And was it so long ago they were twenty? When Jiraiya warned him, all theatrical and brash, what would he do if Orochimaru journeyed too far in his follies of his experiments? He was laughing in a second after his sermon though, suddenly not a man before him, but a simple boy, already taller and twice as wide as he was, squeezing his shoulders gently, as a friend or a lover would - severity gone completely from the lines of his face.

  
Orochimaru remembered himself chuckling, grimacing, acidic and biting, not quite meeting the other's eyes. What he felt was superiority. What he felt was not shame. He had the upper hand. Jiraiya was biased and he was the recipient, the sole top notch in their three way deadlock game, he thought as he kicked into the leaves, hearing them crumble. Two had remained intact, he noted.

  
They could all pretend, but both Jiraiya and Tsunade would have died for him once. Killed for him once. So where was that feeling of self-assured selfishness? And why had Jiraiya decided to save those urchins, his would-be murderers? That idiot. He could have taken care of the whole thing, but the others would have had none of his help.  
Jiraiya must have been smiling till the very last seconds of his life, thought Orochimaru as he bent to pick up the curled leaves, faded and fatigued but whole. He had half a crave to end it all and crush the leaf in his hands, feel the delicate parts unravel and disaggregate in the harsh autumn wind. He decided against it. For Jiraiya surely smiled. This was an empiric absolutum based on continuous observations, keen assessments. And he was nothing if not thorough in his tests. Even, or especially, concerning the other man.  
Letting himself lean on the trunk of the nearest tree, he felt the weight of his age for what was probably the first time. He didn't let go of the leaf.

  
His eyes must have remained open till the end. Must have been warm. Teeth white as he smiled, laughed in his slumber. Face and hair silverwhite. A sliver of the moon.

 

 

  
-

  
Unlike their sensei, who by that time was completely blind and deaf to any criticisms regarding Orochimaru; and unlike Jiraiya who was a fan of trying to coax the latter into Doing What Is Right and Take It Easy, Tsunade had both the spine and the balls to do more than just talking.

  
She cornered him by the ANBU lockers when she was sure they would be alone. It was day after her return to Konoha.

  
"Heard about some of your recent experiments. Wanna share?" They had often cooperated in the past, mostly to design some medicines, some poisons, some techniques to aid the wounded. The dead.

  
Orochimaru was folding his ANBU vest in an excruciatingly slow manner. He didn't bother to turn around for her either. Tsunade folded her hands, muscles taut, muscles ready. When he finally turned around, he had an apple in his hand. He leaned back on his locker, measuring her up. There was definitely something off about him. _Off-_ er. Something she couldn't put her hands on.

 

"Why, Tsunade-sama." he drawled. His voice was rough. Sounded like he hadn't talked in hours. "Welcome home."

 

"I talked with Jiraiya." she narrowed her eyes, looking for any kind of clues in his expression. Nothing. Not even atomic changes.  "And sensei. Wanna tell me what's going on?"

 

"To think there are people talking about _me_." He took a bite into the apple. The sound shouldn't have sent a shiver down her spine. 

 

"They aren't. I looked up your missions. And your notes from two months ago."

 

His eyes flashed. She continued.

 

"Are you even sleeping at home anymore? Or is it only quick naps in the lab?"

 

He inspected the half-eaten apple between his hands. His mouth curled up.

 

"It's not very nice to use your personal influence to spy on me." He bit into the fruit again. "Or legal, for that matter."

 

Tsunade was done being polite. When she hurled her fist into the adjacent locker, the sound reverberated all around them making Orochimaru narrow his eyes. His smile froze on his face.

 

"I needn't have to if you told me anything yourself, dammit!" 

 

"What would you have me say, Princess?" Orochimaru pushed himself off the locker and took a tentative step towards her. 

 

"Why did you do it?" She was proud. Her voice didn't waver. "Why encage a bird?"

 

He took another step. The smell of apple hit her nose, tempting. 

 

"I was curious to see how far I can go." He took one last bit into the apple, ready to devour the core with its seeds. "Grow and wait until something stops me. I imagine you are satisfied now?"

 

"No" Tsunade growled. "Not at all. Only cancerous thing grow without check-ups. Remember this, Chimaru."

 

Something mad split in his eyes.

 

"Am I an illness? An infection?" the apple disappeared completely and he chewed a bit, meditating on his next sentence. "How would you treat me, Tsuna?" 

 

She didn't blink. Didn't dare. 

 

"I would carve you out." this was a vow.  "And burn you."

 

He pushed her until her back touched the surface of the locker. His arms on either side of her face as they stared at each other. The snake and its charmer. 

 

"I am not even convinced you would even treat me." he said finally. "Tsunade of the lost causes." 

 

This felt like a slap. His smile was wider now. For the first time, Tsunade was afraid of him. Truly, really.

 

"Tell me" she begged then. Voice low. Voice husky. She put her arms across her chest, as if to shield her heart. "Tell me how did you do it."

 

( _Tell me you didn't want to try it on humans_ )

 

Orochimaru's hands were very gentle and very cold on her face. And when he opened his mouth to speak, to smile, Tsunade could bear it no longer. Knew what was coming. So she closed her eyes.

 

"Tsuna" he breathed. "Wanna know a secret?"

 

 

 

-

  
The snakes caught up to him on the fifth day. He didn't bother to stop.

  
"What does he want?" Jiraiya said off-handedly, to the biggest snake which, incidentally, was the ugliest too. "I already told him my opinion."

  
"We are not here for that."

  
"That's bad fucking news. Cause I never want to see or speak to him again."

  
"Orochimaru had commanded you return to Konoha at once."

  
" _Commanded_?" Jiraiya repeated incredulously, spurting and spitting as he stopped in his tracks. Three snakes did seem a bit excessive, but he knew how Orochimaru had a secret flare for theatrics. "I am not Anko, forever at his heels. I am not his subordinate."

  
_I am not even his friend_ , he had wanted to say, but he wouldn't throw a pity party in front of _his_ snakes. Maybe they were here to spy. To gloat.

  
"Dan Katō is dead." said the smallest one in the smallest of voice.

  
Jiraiya wheeled around immediately.

 

 

  
-

  
It had ended like it begun. Everything coming to a full-circle. This is all the sannin could do now, in war, once again. Die, rebirth, return. Rinse. Repeat. One was dead, one had died but was reborn, one was at the brink of dying. One returned to help in the rebirth of the other. All a kind of death.

  
Katsuyu finally let him closer and she was not afraid of him. If anything, she was surprised. Curious.

  
"Tsunade" Orochimaru's body was a blur. His voice was not quite unkind. Tsunade must have brought out some kind of tenderness out of him, it seemed. Or was this nostalgia? "Seems you have been reckless."

 

 

 

 

_We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;_  
_For he today that sheds his blood with me_  
_Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile_  
_This day shall gentle his condition._


End file.
